News

Trentin powers to second on a tough stage at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana

Fri 8 Feb 2019

Yesterday’s stage winner Matteo Trentin powered to an impressive second place on a what proved to be tough stage at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana today.

It was Greg van Avermaet (CCC) who got the better of the European champion, launching through the final twists and turns and sprinting ahead on the hard uphill drag, to take the win in front of Trentin and Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana).

Ten get away

With 193km on the day’s menu including six categorised climbs, the peloton were happy to let a group of 10riders breakaway in the opening kilometres of the race and ride out to an advantage of over seven minutes.

As the peloton made their way around the course, the leaders continued to hold their advantage with Team Dimension-Data doing most of the pace setting at the front.

The chase

As the kilometres ticked down, the chase picked up and the escapees began to tire with the time gap constantly dropping. Team Astana began to shoulder the workload, drawing in the group and after the Alto de Sot Chera their advantage had plummeted to just one minute and 10 seconds.

Jack Haig sat attentively towards the front of the group as the race heated up with Trentin sticking in the wheels and out of the wind, ready to challenge for another stage victory.

A fight up to the line

The catch was finally made with eight kilometres to go and CCC took over and set a furious pace, forcing the peloton into one long line behind. Before all was lost, Ben Hermans (Israel Cycling Academy) was able to launch an attack and stretch the group out more with many riders dropping off the pace.

Trentin was positioned well towards the front as the sprint began to unfold, but out of the final corner Van Avermaet proved to be faster, blasting to the stage win.

After three stages, Haig now moves up to ninth place overall just 23seconds down on Boasson Hagen ahead of an important general classification test tomorrow.

Matteo Trentin

“I was thinking that Astana or Movistar would shake things up today to make it hard for Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension-Data) who has shown that he is really strong today, so it will be hard to take the lead from him.

"Luckily CCC set a steady tempo and I actually came over the final two climbs pretty good. After the last GPM I went straight to the front and Jack (Haig) did an awesome job staying in front and pulling.

“I think in the end Greg was just better today, maybe if I started my sprint in front of him I could win but it was a little bit like yesterday. You needed to be into the corners in second or third position, first was a little too long, but to be honest Greg just had the better legs today and I have nothing to regret.”